


No Good Deed

by Accidentallytechohazardous



Category: Bleach
Genre: M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 16:39:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1476700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accidentallytechohazardous/pseuds/Accidentallytechohazardous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which it seems that Izuru Kira and Shuuhei Hisagi falling in love is inevitable and Renji, instead of doing the obvious thing and asking to get in on some threesome action, decides that maybe they’re better off without him.</p><p>“Unrequited love is the infinite curse of a lonely heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Good Deed

Renji’s learned good things come in twos. He entered the academy with Rukia as a duo. He made two friends that stuck by him through all 6 years of the academy. Even his zanpakuto, embodying both mammal and reptile, thrives on balance. Light and dark, heat and coldness. Contradiction. Coordination. It feels natural that way.

 

He doesn’t feel so balanced inside. It’s not really something he knows how to explain well. Maybe he’s just become too familiar with shutting people out that he doesn’t know how to compliment them. Unable to pick a side, unable to fit in, he swings wildly from extreme to extreme like a pendulum suspended over the Earth. The motions are constant, heavy, and bound by the laws of nature.

 

\- -

 

“You don’t think it’s a little suspicious?”

 

Renji would look towards Rangiku to give her a curiously raised brow, but he’s a tad too engrossed in his magazine for any of that nonsense. He idly licks his thumb and turns the page noisily, tapping his heel against the top of his desk. “What’s suspicious?”

 

“Them, of course! I mean of course I’m happy for them if my theories are correct- which they almost always are.” Rangiku’s voice sounds insistent yet bossy, which from experience has taught Renji that he’s better off not knowing.

 

“Reading. I can’t see whatever it is you’re seeing. Funny how that works.” Renji mutters. He holds his magazine closer to his face as if he’s having difficulty seeing the words on the page. He can’t actually recall what the article he’s looking at is about.

 

After a long pause, distressingly long for Rangiku, Renji peeks over the top of the magazine at Rangiku and instantly regrets doing so. She is looking at him now, big blue eyes full of concern, empathy for all the things she’s thinking he’s feeling.

 

Renji lays the magazine flat out on his lap, narrowing his eyes at the other lieutenant warily. “Don’t do that.”

 

She sighs at him, eyes gone all crinkly around the edges like she does when he wants to speak, but holds herself back. A long, delicate hand reaches out to rub his knee. Companionably, he supposes, but the feeling is foreign.

 

“I’m sorry, Renji. Are you okay? About all this, I mean?”

 

Renji inhales heavily, taking in air but not letting it go. A half-sigh. He’s not really in a sharing mood right now. That includes feelings as well as carbon-dioxide, as it happens. “Hand.” He warns her. “Please.”

 

And Rangiku retracts her touch. She doesn’t even pester him any further, completely polite about the whole thing. Renji is grateful. He picks the magazine back up and sinks back into his bubble.

 

\- -

 

He can’t explain why. The closest he could come to putting the feeling into words is like describing that time when he went on a mission to the World of the Living. It was no less than fifteen years ago, but things like that pass in the blink of an eye for a soul reaper. Other things, the things that matter, last so much longer.

 

Fun fact: Between not having Rukia to be his best friend anymore, training to win against Byakuya Kuchiki, and refusing to make deep emotional ties for fear that he’d left alone and abandoned all over again, Renji had a lot of time and not much to do with it for about four straight decades.

 

So where does a man go when he has a seikeimon that can take him anywhere in the World of the Living and be back home before naptime?

 

Well, the short answer is “Everywhere.”

 

And he was standing above a city, right at the top, in fact. And oh, it was a hell of a city. The kind with huge buildings that are aptly deserving of the name “skyscraper” that seem to plunge into the heavens above. Made of black steel and ingenuity that Renji has only so far managed to find among humans, they look as if the shadows themselves and all the deep intellect, toil, and dark, survivalist will-power found inside them is rising out of the land below.

 

And where the solid winding towers stand, there is also the light. Blinding and brilliant and bursting forward from every open pore as if to prove there is still beauty in these dark monuments to strength. The city lights glimmer as if they are stars, as if the entire nightsky was fashioned into this little corner of the Earth..

 

Renji, young at heart but older than anything that this city has even seen, more ancient than all the skyscrapers, stands above them all. He peers down at the buildings and the lights down all the way to the people in the streets below, who don’t even perceive the magnificence they’ve build around them as a species. Their beauty is inconsequential but no less awe-striking.

 

Shuuhei has these dark, steel-gray eyes. The kind with a thousand hues and darks and lights in them. Looking at them too long makes Renji feel like he’s looking down the edge of a skyscraper. Without even realizing it, the breath ripped out of his lungs just as the actual plunge would.

 

Renji wants to examine every part of Shuuhei piece by piece. Wishes he could run his fingers over every sensitive inch of his body and every obscure crevice of his mind. Every skyscraper and celestial light and simple civilian of him that made his whole being possible. He feels undeveloped and dim and sallow in comparison.

 

That was what you really had to appreciate in order to adore a city skyline, Renji supposed. The anonymity. The disconnect between the observer and the observed.

 

So he didn’t blame Shuuhei for the fact that when Renji couldn’t contain his looks of adoration, Shuuhei smiled like every bit of him was worth that affection.

 

But that kind of smile was never for Renji.

 

Because like all the humans in the city below while Renji counted them hundred by hundred on the tips of his fingers, they couldn’t really see him back. Just out of the corner of their eyes, or more often completely just looking right through him.

 

\- -

 

If Shuuhei is the city skyline, Izuru is the ruins of Rome (Renji was there, too. There was some awful business in Italy at the time the 1940’s rolled around. Lots of people dying violent, unsatisfied deaths. Lots of people needing a helping hand to getting on the way home. As home as the Rukongai would be for any of them.)

 

Izuru was the colosseum, grand and beautiful and brutal. So gorgeously sturdy, so delicately and thoughtfully crafted, Renji could nearly forget that every inch of the structure had been painted with blood at some point. Layer after layer of atrocity, and the colosseum, for all it’s punishment both doled out and received, still stood. Those who came to seek it bathed in the golden sunlight filtered through it’s windows without a care for those who been slain in only a way that a twisted artform such as was entertained there could produce. Izuru was his own colosseum, and he was his own judge, and he was every bronze-clad gladiator.

 

He was the temples, standing proud in pale ivory and gold- rather like Izuru himself- full of praise to that which Renji could recognize but never fully relate. The intricacies of Izuru’s mind, those values to which he cherished, the loveliness in despair that he saw in the world was worth writing poem after poem in worship of. These things were complex and alluring mysteries.

 

Renji has no love for the architects of Izuru’s mind. But he desperately wishes he could understand him as intricately as they did. To know the reasonings of Izuru’s words brick by brick, every muse’s song of his thoughts. He wishes he could know every crack and ridge and dark stain on the long, stunning, pale columns of Izuru’s arms and legs. Renji would worship that mind and that body as if Izuru were unto himself a god. A good god he would make, too- deeply influential to his worshipper, mysterious and secretive, and severely flawed. Almost poetically so.

 

Renji would make of himself an archaeologist, and cradle each fragmented part of Izuru in his hands. He would handle each puzzle piece and cultivate each piece of ruin back into its grandiose structure if he thought he was capable of such a thing.

 

But Renji was no priest, no lion, not even a bystander watching his homeland swallowed by the valleys of destruction and war that Izuru’s mind knew. He could not stand in Izuru’s shoes. Therefor, he could not stand amongst the shadows and the thoughts as sharp as Roman spearheads in Izuru’s mind.

 

That job belonged to someone else now. Someone that Izuru had hand-picked himself while Renji was still wrapped up in his own odyssey. And Renji could rage against the gods of Izuru’s heart for his selection all he liked. But when love is such a fickle thing, how could he dare refuse?

 

He does not. A gladiator who falls in the coliseum accepts his defeat.

 

\- -

 

Renji is just about to turn the corner when he hears Shuuhei laugh. It’s that heavy, full, throaty laugh that sounds, somehow, like security.

 

Renji finds this noteworthy. Primarily because in the academy, Shuuhei was so well-known for being such a straight-faced, serious boy that Renji is trained to find any deviations from his behavior remarkable. Whenever Shuuhei laughed, you could guarantee there was a swarm of swooning schoolgirls nearby to appreciate it.

 

Not that Renji was like that when he heard Shuuhei’s laughter. He’s not quite so pathetic. He should like to think.

 

He comes around the corner and almost runs smack into Izuru, who in turn almost misses Renji completely because his eyes are squeezed shut in a kind of reverence for the joy that Shuuhei exudes back into his direction. Izuru flushes faintly and brushes flaxen bangs out of his eyes with his long, bony hands as if he’s embarrassed by the clamor that Shuuhei’s making.

 

But if he wants to make any kind of remark to protest the commotion, he does not voice it. Izuru, for once, emits an aura of utter contentedness.

 

Renji, as Izuru’s oldest friend, is so happy for him.

 

Izuru sees him first, blinking up at him from under that fringe of disarrayed bangs. “Abarai.” He says in an even voice, though the corners of his mouth still turn upwards vaguely. “I can’t believe I almost didn’t see you. Hisagi distracted me, as he is wont to do. One day I’m going to walk out into the middle of the street and get run over by a cart because he just had to tell me something that was just so important.”

 

He gives Shuuhei a pointed look and Shuuhei shrugs his shoulders and scratches his eyebrow as if this has become normal routine for them and he can’t be bothered to deflect Izuru’s not-so-gentle teasing. Shuuhei seems to glow with pride at every word Izuru directs at him, basks in the attention and reflects it back at the world.

 

“What’s so funny?” Renji asks, and his voice feels heavier than when he meant it. It falls from his lips like lead.

 

Shuuhei scoffs a little, looking at his feel and biting his lip, suddenly flustered. “It’s a long story. It’s not even funny. Kira is just weird. We’re freaks.”

 

Izuru mutters something along the lines of “You’re the freak, you freak.” But Renji has just remembered somewhere else he’s supposed to be that needs attending to or something. Probably some menial chore like paperwork or organizing Captain Kuchiki’s calligraphy pens one or two or six time or bleeding out on a sandy dune as all his internal organs get shredded piece by piece again. Anything sounds good now, really.

 

\- -

 

It’s friday night when Renji is alone, somehow.

 

He had a mission in the World of the Living. Some way or another, they manage to keep shuttling him off there only to pull him back a few days later like a lure with no catch. He’s not there long enough for the disease of a strange, unfamiliar setting to become easy to him, but not long enough for him to stop missing the privacy of his own quarters and the convenience of having friends around him, or at least nearby.

 

And everyone back home just moves on, as if he was never even missing.

 

He had calls when he checked back into the office, but they weren’t important. Work drivel, really. He’d deal with it, but he’s tired and wants to relax. The people he wants to see right now are not relaxing, but he looks for them anyways.

 

It’s empty in the Third Division, as dark and empty as if it’s a mausoleum. The new captain of the Third arranged for some flowers to be planted in large flower boxes at the windows. Izuru planted sunset-orange marigolds and halod heads of narcissus. Renji thinks its weird that such pretty things have such sad meanings. The flowers look far too cheerful, sitting in clusters in the windows of drafty, abandoned halls.

 

At the Ninth Division, he has more luck. A fierce glow of candlelight beats at the twilight’s darkness, trembling with rage and life. Renji is quite positive that if he finds Shuuhei here, Izuru can’t be far behind.

 

The light is glowing from the lantern, but Shuuhei is no where to be found. Just an empty desk, cluttered with papers as usual. Not all of them have Shuuhei’s handwriting. Theres a little paper crane on the corner of the desk, like a guardian to the entirety of Shuuhei’s ridiculous workload. Alone and with a dejected kind of feeling he can’t explain, Renji pulls at the tail to make the wings flap.

 

He’s standing there looking kind of stupid playing with a paper crane when Shuuhei’s captain walks in. Kensei Mugumura’s dangerous, windswept rebel look is almost impressively offset by the neat load of papers stacked under his arm and color-coded with vibrant pink and green flags.

 

“… You lost or something?” Captain Mugumura asks, with the kind of accusatory default tone that makes everything he says sound like someone spit in his cheerios that morning.

 

“Yes, that’s exactly how I got to the main office. After hours. When everybody was gone.” Renji says, because two can play at the grump game. And for all his good instincts, he had the self-preservation of rotting roadkill.

 

Kensei snorts and stomps past Renji to his own office just kitty-corner to Shuuhei’s. Renji half expects him to launch off on some kind of exposition about how the divisions weren’t so chummy that one could just snoop around on someone else’s squad grounds or something. He just feels like it would fit somehow.

 

Kensei stomps back out of his office. Renji doesn’t think he’s angry he just… stomps. Like Godzilla. And he stretched his huge arms like he considers doing paperwork to be just as serious and straining as a physical fight. For the workload that comes in to the Ninth every day, it probably kind of is.

 

He stops and turns to look at Renji with eyes unfocused and probably blurry from working at lamplight for so long. Renji stands around waiting to get yelled at. It’s not like he has anything better planned for tonight.

 

“You lookin’ for Hisagi?” Kensei asks, cocking his head and jutting out his chin like he’s sizing Renji up for something.

 

Renji puts the crane back down on the desk, where upon it falls over and rests upon it’s wing clumsily. “He’s not here.” He says rather obviously, suddenly not feeling all that bright.

 

Kensei raises an eyebrow. It’s the one with the golden piercing in it. “So what are you doing here?”

 

It doesn’t even sound accusatory, or even cranky, which throws Renji off guard. What is he doing here? What’s he doing in general? This was a question about why he was loitering in the Ninth division’s office, not an interrogation about his existential state.

Stuffing his hands in his pocket, Renji abandons the crane and the desk heading towards the door. “Leaving. Sorry to disturb you.”

 

Watching him trump past, Kensei pauses before standing at the desk Renji had just been attending. He’s pretty sure what when Shuuhei gets to work tomorrow that crane will be standing perfectly upright, in the corner, the exact same square amount of inches from both edges of the desk.

 

\- -

 

Debacle after debacle happens, because nothing really stays quiet for long in Soul Society, and Renji tries to let it go. Tries to let them go. He doesn’t go a very good job of it.

 

He can feel it, physically feel it. Shuuhei and Izuru collect each other like scratch cards, scratching through layer after layer of the masks they wear until the person they see in each other is not the person they let Renji see.

 

He can feel them falling in love with each other.

 

He can feel himself getting more angry and guilty and sick.

 

It’s not fair. He could rip out his heart and punish it for doing this to him. One of them might be manageable. At least slightly more-so. If it was only the creases in Izuru’s bony knuckles he wanted to kiss or the scars down Shuuhei’s face from his brow over his eyelid to his jaw. Maybe that would be okay.

 

But both of them? At the same time? While they’re too busy with each other to barely even think of him? Sometime he has to look himself in the bathroom mirror, hands bracing the sink and glaring at his own haunted, empty expression in the mirror and just ask himself “Really?”

 

He’s in love. Stupidly, pathetically in love. In the way only someone as idiotic and with such bad tastes as him can be.

 

He watches them on the bench in springtime, fingertips barely brushing. Affectionate teasing tones, silly blushes, and a dark undertone of a mutual understanding of something much more severe and serious.

 

Shuuhei wears untapped violence on him like a robe made of smoke, in perfect balance with Izuru’s melancholic stares and ghostly voice. They understand each other. They fit like the rain fits the fog and the flames fit the fire. And Renji, for all of how spikey and bloody he is, every thought magnified into a scream and every touch of his body made out of fangs and nails, cannot hope to disturb their peace. It would be like building a home on top of a graveyard, or cleaving apart a still-beating heart.

 

Still, for every dark gaze, there is a soft touch in turn. It’s very lovestruck schoolboy, the two of them. Renji’s never been so jealous of anything in his entire life.

 

He has dark thoughts too, you know? But no one’s ever really thought to ask him for his philosophical gaze, to look inside himself at all the raw, brutal pieces. He’s not sure anyone ever would.

 

Renji is not in the business of denying himself of much. And they can’t shame you for the things you wear on your sleeve. You can coat yourself in the blood of a thousand enemies and stand upon a broken pedestal and they still cannot guilt you as long as you realize it was you who put yourself there. He’s not ashamed of who he is.

 

But love? Pathetic, stupid love?

 

Yes. He’s quite ashamed of that.

 

\- -

 

He has other ways to fill his time. He’s not as lost as he used to be, with only a vague glow of light hanging in the sky for guiding his ambition, leading him by the tooth.

 

All things considered, Renji has done pretty alright for himself.

 

He sits with Rukia behind the Kuchiki manor, flicking bits of bread off their thumbs into the enormous pool of koi at their toes. The fish themselves, almost frighteningly large and dappled in eye-catching swatches of gold, red, white and black, dance fearlessly at the edges of their feet as they await their snack.

 

Rukia pulls her sandals and tabi off, tipping her big toes into the cool water. A big white koi meanders up curiously and tries to nip her before she shoos it away.

 

“At least they’ve stopped disappearing for now. Nii-sama was really upset when the last few went missing. He was absolutely convinced that one of the servants was sneaking them out.” Rukia says, drawing her fingers along the surface of the pool like she’s imagining patterns of frost and ice spreading across.

 

Renji kicks his feet together, tossing a small handful of bread to the far end of the pond and watching in amusement as the fish swarm over each other in delight and the command of their short attention spans. “We’ll put a man out undercover in the Rukon black market. See who’s dealing two-foot-long fish on the street corner.”

 

Rukia snorts, then releases a few crumbs to some of the slower-moving fish who weren’t as quick on the uptake as their pondmates about the feeding frenzy going on in the deep end.

 

“Don’t tease them, it’s mean.” Rukia chastises him lightly.

 

“They’re fish. This the most interesting part of their entire week.” Renji points out, grabbing another handful of crumbs from the ceramic bowl between the two. “If there was such an issue with them going A.W.O.L., why’d the Captain keep having more sent in?”

 

Rukia made a noncommittal noise. “He likes having fish is all, I guess. Breeding them is a hobby to him, and it makes him happy. We’ve all got those kinds of things, I guess. Even Nii-sama.”

 

“Sounds like a boring hobby.” Renji says, waving his hand to the side and sending another shattershot of bread plunging beneath the surface. Now it’s inhabitants are just perplexed.

 

“Better than scrapbooking.” Rukia argues. She leans in, resting her elbows on her knees, and sends a warm look back at him. “You should try scrapbooking, though. I’ve heard its very engaging. What do you even do with your time nowadays, with the war all done and whatnot?”

 

Renji blinks. That’s a pretty loaded question. What was he even doing before the war? “I train. You know that, Rukia.”

 

Rukia narrows her eyes and gives him a smile like he should know better. “I mean for fun, obviously.”

 

“Training is fun.”

 

“That’s just sad. You can’t be training all the time!”

 

Renji huffs, suddenly needing to rack his brain just to come up to a truthful answer. He has plenty of hobbies and interests that he engages in regularly, like all well-adjusted people do. Surely. “I just hang out with my friends a lot, I guess.”

 

“‘Hang out’?” Rukia presses skeptically.

 

Renji shrugs in response. “Yeah. I dunno, we get food and drinks and we talk. What else do people do?”

 

“Okay, so you sit around and gossip like old women. Got it.” Rukia looks back down at the fish and away from Renji’s now seething expression. “But that’s not something you can get really invested in, is it? Not personal. I’m talking something you don’t have to share a part of yourself to do.”

 

“I don’t know what that even means.” Renji scoffs, scowling and working her words through his brain.

 

Rukia smiles softly, fondly, at some of the smaller fish at her heels. “Yeah? I guess we’ll all find out one day.”

 

\- -

 

For however strict the lines between squads are, they can never completely divide the officers within them. In spite of squad loyalty or even sometimes because of it, friendships and connections ensue anyways. They spill over, leaking through walls and overflowing dams until the contents are so much more mixed up than their confining structures could hope to restrict.

 

And every division, even the infamously uptight and antisocial ones appreciate a good banquet. Shinigami, still in uniform and with swords at their hips, flock beneath the torchlight and lanterns to partake in food and the simple delight of each other’s company. Even soldiers drink and laugh jovially. Sometimes more than most other people. Sometimes they need to.

 

Renji sits cross-legged on the picnic blanket while Momo chatters to him on one side and Ikkaku bellows on the other. Needless to say with this arrangement, he’s not very in-tune with what’s going on around him. But he’s got a kebab of some sort balanced on one knee and a dish of sake on the other, so he’s content as he is.

 

It’s all well and good until he sees a flash of yellow hair out of the corner of his eyes, a familiar bark of laughter. He almost sighs in exasperation- this endless cycle of bitter, confusing feelings has grown beyond tiring.

 

So why does it still hurt?

 

So Renji fixes his eyes on his lap, between his food and his drink. Someone might have called his name a few times, but he pretends he can’t hear.

 

It’s a weird kind of ache that doesn’t go away, this feeling. Like a rock lodged into the back of his skull, all the pieces fractured and too shattered to be set right again. It drains him, wears him like stone eroded by a constant storms and the simple passing of time.

 

But maybe it’ll go away eventually. He’s not sure. He hasn’t lived that long yet.

 

He’s not drunk when he pulls himself up and dusts of his knees, though he doesn’t exactly feel well, either. He tells everyone he’s going home and staggers over the confused tangle of limbs covering the ground around him. Many people are intoxicated. It’s quite a mess.

 

Renji doesn’t like the idea that he’s used to being lonely. He hates to think that kind of melancholy has a power over him. It’s bad enough he’s moping around instead of being able to halt this twisted sensation happening inside of him, but there’s not exactly anything he can do about it, is there?

 

That’s a lie. He could do something about it. He just won’t.

 

He’ll be a good friend and work his way out of this tangled web of social interaction and commotion and walk back to his quarters alone. He’ll eat and drink by himself and the solitude will make him stronger like it always has. He’ll sink into the shadows and use them to craft a better person.

 

Mostly, though, he’ll teach himself to kill his feelings.

 

He’s halfway home-free from the autumn-colored glow of the party when his foot lands squarely on someone’s fingers, which earns him a harsh yell and a retaliating blow to his shin. Now, Renji’s a pretty sturdy guy so in most situations this wouldn’t even bother him. But right now he’s not quite tipsy but still barely short of sober.

 

His feet trip over themselves and over other people until he loses his balance completely and he watches the ground get a lot closer than it was before when he falls backwards onto his ass. Well done. Renji’s definitely on a roll this evening.

 

He only needs an instant to blink and realize it’s not the ground he’s sitting on, and only a second more to fathom the subsequent clamor kicked up around him, primarily and outraged noise from behind him going “What the fuck-”

 

Yep, those are knees his thighs are between just now. And that’s a chest his back is against. And that’s a lap he’s sitting on. And that’s a voice he knows. Renji twists his body and cranes his neck to look right into the bemused yellow eyes of one Captain Kensei Mugumura.

 

Renji prays for a swift and painless death.

 

Kensei’s lips twitch in a feral snarl, lines in his forehead deepening from the intensity with which he furrows his brows but miraculously he has managed to not kill Renji yet.

 

Renji speaks, which is widely regarded as a terrible idea in any given situation. “Would you believe I’m not lost this time, either?”

 

Kensei opens his mouth to respond, lips pulled wide and exposing a lot of scary, straight, white teeth, but is interrupted by a slew of wolf-whistling coming from the general direction of Captain Shinji Hirako. The Ninth Division caption shuts his mouth with such alarming force Renji is concerned that his skull might shatter from the impact.

“Get off.” He growls through gritted, grinding teeth.

 

Renji stammers, face flushed and feeling really, really stupid as he mutters “Oh. Yeah. Good idea.”

Even though its obviously a good idea. It’s the only idea.

 

He clambers to his feet amongst the eyes of those around him, shocked and quite blank in the brain. He thinks he might be woozy just from the sheer force of all the blood in his brain collecting in his face.

 

Kensei stares up at him suspiciously and puts his bowl on the grass next to him before incredulously bellowing “Are you drunk?”

 

“Rarely, to be honest.” Renji says on impulse, following it up with a straighter posture and a much more respectful “No, sir.”

 

But his face is flushed and his balance is thrown off and he’s been looking really tired in general lately so he doesn’t think Kensei believes him. This is supported by the way Kensei’s eyes swing back and forth over the banquet around him like he’s putting together a tactical plan, then huffs air through his nose and gets up to his feet.

 

Renji’s shoulders tighten and stubbornness starts to set in. He doesn’t need to be shoved off the premises, he was already on his own damn way out. “Captain Mugumura, I’m fine. I was just leaving-”

 

“Shuddup.” Kense grabs a fistfull of the back of Renji’s shihakusho and uses it to roughly maneuver him forward. “Keep walking. Don’t make a commotion and embarrass yourself or anything, either, kid.”

 

And so, pushed along by the juggernaut that is Captain Mugumura, Renji finds his feet carrying him further and further away from the party. Their fare-thee-well is an increasingly distant voice behind them. “Oi, Kensei! Ain’t you gonna at least buy him a drink first?”

 

The hazy lights and smell of food fade further and further into quiet nighttime. The fireflies are coming back, Renji notices. The fireflies remind him of Shin’o Academy, all rolling plans and tall swatches of grass that they didn’t have in the shabby, overcrowded neighborhoods of Renji’s earlier years. Kensei still has him by the scruff, but a wary look behind him tells Renji that the other man looks much less enraged than he did before. He’s not even looking at Renji, just has his eyes set casually ahead as if this were an ordinairy evening stroll.

 

“I’m really not drunk, y’know.” Renji says, trying to keep the testiness out of his voice. His bemused scowl, on the other hand, he was never much good at hiding.

 

Kensei glances back at him, brow raised like he’s almost surprised Renji is arguing with him. “No shit. You don’t stink nearly enough to be wasted.”

 

It’s kind of shocking to hear a captain that isn’t Zaraki curse like that. That kind of rough language is reserved only for the Eleventh Division and the re-instated visoreds, along with all the other impertinent bad habits they’ve brought back with them like typhoid carriers.

 

“Okay, cool.” Renji nods. Quiet for barely ten seconds before asking. “Why are you pushing me, then?”

 

Kensei shuts his eyes like he’s saying a quiet prayer of relief. “I needed some sort of way to get out of that party. A hundred fucking years and I forgot how much of the job was straight-up babysitting. If you pretend I escorted your shit-faced ass home, I’ll buy you that drink.”

 

Up close and personal, Kensei’s not as scary, really. He looks younger than Renji thought he was. Maybe it’s the hair. Or the way that he seems to embody years of anger, decades of it. Rage that doesn’t truly belong to him but was squeezed into him until every part of his person was crushed and weary from it. He is angry and weary beyond his age.

 

But he taps his finger patiently on the bar surface until the bartender brings out a bottle. He rubs the shadows under his eyes. He looks like those ancient marble statues, stern and old and belonging to a different era.

 

Renji looks down into his dish. He doesn’t really feel like drinking now, but he had absolutely nothing better do except be miserable for and about himself. And at any rate, Kensei is not the kind of man you deny in favor of such petty things.

 

Kensei’s tone is even but somehow his voice carries like cannon fire, a sudden and startling blast in Renji’s ears that make him jump. “So what’s your excuse?”

 

He’s gonna need to be more specific than that. “Excuse for what, sir?”

 

“For bailing on that stupid banquet. What else would we be talking about?” Kensei finishes up with a long, raw drink of sake. Renji’s throat burns just watching him.

 

Renji wills himself not to be morose about his answer. He chases away visions of skeletal steel skylines and bone-dust white pillars. He lays his elbows on the bar and hunches over only slightly. “Eh, I just wasn’t feeling it. Been in a sour mood lately, so one party ain’t a big deal.”

 

He doesn’t expect Kensei to pry any deeper than that, and he’s rewarded with correctness. Kensei looks at nothing in particular, scowling like he’s mad but Renji thinks he might just always look that way so he’s not particularly bothered by it anymore.

 

Renji slaps his palms lightly on the bar, nervous from awkwardness if nothing else. Renji’s pretty okay with people, but only when they share with him. And Kensei doesn’t seem like the “Sharing” type, at any rate.

 

“You were in the Winter War, right? The part of it in Karakura, with all the other Visoreds.” Renji finds himself saying, for lack of anything else he knows about the man beside him. “I wasn’t at that part. I only know what people told me about it.”

 

Kensei looks surprised by this, like it’s an odd thing for Renji to bring up. Renji will admit it’s not your usual “How about that weather” small-talk.

 

“Yeah, we were.” Kensei says ‘we were’ as if it came more naturally than saying ‘I was’. “Where were you?”

 

Renji isn’t offended by the accusatory tone accompanied by that question. He got asked the same thing an awful lot when he came back by those who weren’t in the loop. To the casual observer, especially the ones defending the home territory, it looked more than likely that Renji and Rukia had disappeared just in the midst of crisis.

 

But everyone was busy, then. It’s all good.

 

Renji tells him. “Huenco Mundo. Helping Ichigo. They don’t have that in the books, though. In case you’re wondering. It wasn’t exactly in line with my orders.”

 

As soon as he said the name ‘“Ichigo” Kensei nodded heavily in understanding and didn’t stop until after Renji finished. To someone who trained Ichigo personally, understood the crux upon which the entire war hinged like a crystal glass sitting halfway off a tabletop, the visored must understand as well as Renji that there are some impulses you don’t fight. Some loyalties you don’t think too deeply about.

 

“Orders around here nowadays. I’d say that ‘since the whole debacle no one can trust anyone’, but no one could trust anyone before, either. Just that no one knew it yet. Back in-” Kensei stops suddenly and lifts a massive arm to run his fingers through his hair, thoroughly disheveling it.

 

“What?”Renji presses, enjoying the feeling of having a real, legitimate conversation with someone that hasn’t known him for years, the semi-anonymity of it. He grins at Kensei and feels a little more like himself.

 

Kensei groans, and if Renji didn’t know better he’d say that the older man even looked embarrassed. “I was about to say ‘back in my day’, but you’d think I sound like an old man.”

 

“I kinda think that anyways, sir.” Renji says evenly, and makes a noise of protest when Kensei snorts and swings an arm at him.

 

\- -

 

In the academy, Izuru used to sew almost constantly. He’d get uniforms that were too large for him, alter them to his size, then grow out of them as soon as he was done tightening the fit, at which point he’d have to let them out again. That wasn’t even counting the wear and tear from your usual scrapes that occurred in late adolescence, although more often than not it was Renji’s clothes Izuru would be mending for that.

 

Renji had breached his full adult height halfway through the academy, by the way. Switching clothing sizes wasn’t nearly as much of a problem for him as it was for late bloomer Izuru.

 

He remembers the ministrations of Izuru’s hands working a needle, movements nothing short of complicated and precise. Rarely did he ever prick himself. When he was finished he clamped the thread between the sharp corners of his teeth and snipped it cleanly.

 

Renji wonders if Izuru still has his sewing kit, or if he still uses it to mend his clothes now that he’s stopped growing. Surely enough commotion happens in Soul Society for Izuru to need an occasional stitch in his shihakusho here and there. He probably perfected his needlework when sewing up wounds in the Fourth. Renji’s not sure. He wasn’t there for that.

 

He wonders if he’ll ever watch Izuru sew again.

 

Shuuhei probably will, if things go well. And it looks like they are- Shuuhei is at Izuru’s side almost constantly, nowadays. He trails after the slighter man like a loyal puppy dog, finds himself deeply fascinated in everything he does. Shuuhei has never been shy towards any part of Izuru, never hesitated in giving him any part of himself. Nor could he deny Izuru anything he asked of Shuuhei, has he seemed to grow and flourish from Izuru’s approval like it was sunshine and water.

 

It’s more than redundant to point out that Renji is jealous again. But from time to time he wonders which one he’s more envious of.

 

Perhaps he’ll ask Izuru to mend some tears in the sleeve of his uniform tomorrow. None of them are damaged as of now, but things could happen.

 

\- -

 

He finds himself around the Ninth Division, hoping to meet up with Shuuhei and arrange a lunch-date. It’s one of the innocently manipulative moves he’s pulled, because he knows Shuuhei adores eating out but can never justify the costs of it when he’s on his own. Renji will even settle for indulging Shuuhei’s bad habits of taking scraps if it will get him some personal time.

 

Shuuhei and Izuru aren’t really attached to the hip. It just seems that way in Renji’s mind because he’s overdramatic, he realizes this. Still he can’t stop his paranoid feeling that every time he looks around for Shuuhei, Izuru is gonna be haunting him somewhere just around the corner. Like a spectre in the corner of his eye, like a guilty conscious.

 

He wanders from hallway to hallway, taking all routes that he’s sure is going to bring him back in front of Shuuhei’s office. Sometimes Shuuhei doesn’t appear for hours, but Renji meanders anyways. He recalls something he heard quoted at him once, about how insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result.

 

And he’s much more careful this time to reach out with just a little bit of his spiritual energy, seeping from his being and just barely brushing against his surroundings, so he makes sure to take a path that guarantees him to run into as little people as possible. Kensei already caught him once, and one is more than enough for Renji to get glared at and whispered about.

 

He wonders what Shuuhei and Izuru would do if they found out somehow. Not from him, no. He’d never tell. It’s perfectly in line with his nature to keep things like this to himself, letting it fester inside. People will accuse him of wearing his emotions too openly, but he’s not the kind to let those kinds of people in. When it comes down to it, it’s just easier to present the things that people want to see, and the rest he keeps inside himself and lets it take root there. Being angry shows people who’s in control, being irritable guarantees him a reaction. His emotions are such delicate, volatile weapons.

But one way or another it could just potentially- slip out? Through rumor and over-exaggeration and the constant thirst of the public for scandal, someone could tell a truthful lie. It’d be so easy for a stranger to trip over Renji’s heart and not even realize it.

 

It’s almost exactly lunch time when Shuuhei actually does roll around. His dark hair is disheveled and he has a precarious stack of papers under his arm, and he looks nothing short of harassed. Still, Renji narrows his eyes and traces his gaze up and down the coltish lines of Shuuhei’s body like he’s expecting to find Izuru’s fingerprints on him somewhere. He can’t stop himself.

 

“Gonna need a rain-check on that one, Abarai. Looks like it’s gonna be another lunch in the office with my good friend, paperwork, for me. Yet again…” Shuuhei sighs, gracelessly dropping the files onto his desk where they spread and swamp over the surface and onto the floor. He pulls out his chair and sets himself in it, armed with a pen and looking more than ready to belligerently resign himself to his workload.

 

Renji, meanwhile, feels his temper bubble up and pop. For some reason he can’t explain, he feels cheated. He wonders if Shuuhei would leave with him if he were Izuru. “What have you been doing all day, then? Sitting with your thumb up your ass?”

 

Shuuhei gives him a startled look, hurt and anger flashing like lightning across his face. “Of course not. I’ve been working all day, but the draft for the magazine is due- you know what, I don’t have to explain anything to you when you talk to me that way! What’s the matter with you?”

 

Renji’s face burns and he has to look away. “Nothing. Forget it. I shouldn’t have said that.”

 

Shuuhei blinks once, kind of slowly, like he’s looking into sunlight. His dark lashes frame his eyes too well, the city lights are too bright. Like police search lights. “Abarai, what’s your problem? Like, what’s actually bothering you.”

 

Darkly, damagingly, Renji imagines that straight, narrow nose of Shuuhei’s breaking, collapsing in on itself from the impact of a fist. “I don’t have a problem.”

 

“That’s obviously a lie. Do you think I’m fucking stupid?” Shuuhei pushes back his chair and stands up. Shuuhei isn’t a very tall man, at least not compared to Renji, but his anger fills up the whole room. Renji is crushed by the volume of it. “I’m your friend, Abarai. Right? Just tell me what’s wrong with you?”

 

It could slip. The world- his world- already teeters on the edge of a cliff, it’d be more than easy to push it off. Would it hurt? What if the words just didn’t come out? He was curious.

 

Would it be painful, like a stab to the heart as he burned it out and showed it to Shuuhei for him to see? Or would it make him numb inside, to use up all his feelings and words until every synapse in his brain was snapped and every nerve was cut at at the root. He wouldn’t even feel a thing.

 

All he had to do was say it. The truth.

 

Here it goes.

 

“You’re in love with Kira.”

 

Blood sings in Renji’s ears as the blood drains from Shuuhei’s face. He looks exposed, pinned and cut open on the dissection tray.

 

“You’re in love with him.” Renji says again. He was right. He feels numb. It also hurts. “And he’s in love with you.”

 

Shuuhei swallows, throat trembling. His eyeline falls to the floor like toppled towers going down in flames and he’s answered before he’s even spoken.

 

“Tell him, you idiot. He’s probably getting sick of you just pining for him and not doing anything.” Renji turns on his heels and walks out and slams the door shut behind him and he only looks back once. Only once.

 

And he’s two hallways down- he knows these hallways well enough- when he buries his face in his hands like he’s trying to hold himself back in. Push himself back into place. He wants to be himself again so badly.

 

His eyes sting but they’re dry, too dry. They feel scratchy. He rubs them with his wrists. It feels like there’s a hand clawing it’s way up from inside his chest cavity, fist locked around both his lungs and he can’t get enough air. The vision shakes as his breathing becomes more raggedy, more effortful. He wants to wrap his arms around himself just to feel more secure, something safe, with his fingers clasped tightly around his elbows but it would do him no good because there is no warmth left in those touches.

 

He only needs a moment. Or two. Or enough for time to blend together. All those emotions, that distress, the weak parts of himself he smashes under his heel and it still hurts.

 

Breath comes back to Renji. Just barely enough. And then he keeps walking.

 

\- -

 

He keeps walking until he walks exactly into Kensei Mugumura.

 

What a coincidence.

 

Renji realized that Kensei is shorter than him, by maybe four inches. Less than? Funny, he seems too huge it’s hard to imagine him as less than some powerful force greater than size and magnitude.

 

He’s not sure what brings on the realization. Maybe it’s that when Renji staggers back and looks at the captain, Kensei has to actually look up at him for Renji to see eyes like gold coins heavy with curiosity as well with pity.

 

Renji know he must be in a state. He imagines that his eyes are red and raw, his face is pallid and colorless. It can’t possibly compare to what’s happening inside of him, but Renji thinks that if anyone could see those parts of him it would look too huge, like a nuclear mushroom cloud enveloping everyone around him.

 

A hand reaches out to steady him, coming down stiffly on his shoulder. Kensei’s jaw is set, mouth twisted and eyes narrowed so Renji can only see the little marigold slivers of his eyes. He thinks this might be the closest that Kensei comes to looking confused, maybe even concerned.

 

The steadying hand pulls Renji forward- this will be the second time Kensei had guided him, and the second time that it’s Renji’s fault- and drives him back towards Shuuhei’s office. And for a horrific, hellish moment Renji thinks he might get marched right back in there to face Shuuhei all over again. It would be worse than a nightmare, a living anxiety dream just footsteps away from his waking body.

 

But Kensei sharply turns him a few times and they’re in Kensei’s private office. And Kensei releases his hold on Renji, who sort of feels weightless now that the grasp is gone. He stalks behind his own desk like some instinct-driven creature, like he knows exactly what to do. He pulls out a bottle of clear dark liquid and sets it on the desk where it sloshes in glints of amber and topaz.

 

“Little remedy I held onto from the World of the Living.” Kensei explains professionally before bringing the bottle up to his mouth and pulling the cork out with his teeth. “It cures what ails ya’.”

 

He asks no questions, nor says anything about Renji’s state. He just holds the bottle out in his fist by its neck. Kensei stares Renji down like he might start to growl if Renji refuses, but it’s an odd kind of subdued anger. Almost comforting. Like a dog might make when observing a person in obvious distress.

 

Renji accepts the bottle. He takes a long drink and by that point the rest might as well be out of his hands.

 

\- -

 

More than enough hours later, after the divisions have all been locked up and the quietness is too cold and dark to bear alone, Renji does go home with Kensei.

 

Kensei continues to not be a sharer so it should be surprising to Renji. With him watching the bottle traded off from one hand to another util Kensei is sprawled deep into his desk chair, elbows set aloft the armrests like a weary god. And Renji is sitting on the desk, in front of him, cradling the bottle in his arms as if its a wounded animal. And maybe Renji should have been tipped off things were going in this direction or even known from the start with the way he was sitting, facing Kensei with his knees spread open on the desk and just barely bracing Kensei’s thighs.

 

And at some point they chatter and mumble half-slurred conversations about things neither of them are going to remember until one moment that will be clearly focused in Renji’s mind forever, heightened in definition by the camera lense of his brain. When Kensei leans into him- leans up, really- and turns Renji’s face towards his face with a brush of his knuckles. His lips, rough and chapped, barely brush the corner of Renji’s mouth when he says “I want you. Would you let me take you if I asked?”

 

Renji is already figuring out ways to excuse it- with the way he’s been trailing after the two soon-to-be-lovers like he’s been, he’s spent an ample amount of time in the Ninth. And after banquet, it’d be easy enough to assume he’d gotten attached. Kensei’s only humoring him. Thinking that maybe if he speaks to Renji enough, brushes his hand over Renji’s frame enough, kisses Renji enough, he’ll go away.

 

It’s a little subdued for Kensei, but not impossible. People have done more convoluted things to keep Renji away.

 

But Renji can excuse more than one person, and he’s grown so tired of things being his fault. And it’d be so easy because Kensei is so there, and Renji aches inside so much. Its a ready and willing partner, someone with heart left to spare. It’s right here, right now, no waiting or longing or falling in love required. And as a bonus, it’s even someone Renji sort of likes.

 

Kensei’s mouth tastes like metal and black tea. His touches feel rough and hungry. He doesn’t treat Renji gently, which is just as much as Renji figured, but he acts upon him fully, wildly, with wet kisses and hands that carry hard caresses. Kensei is shorter than Renji but he’s not slimmer, which is a unique change from the usual, and he rocks bed until it squeaks and rattles and cries for mercy. Back against the mattress, Renji’s shoulder blades squeeze and his body wracks with pleasure and electric energy up and down like water being pushed back and forth and his mind shatters and falls apart like it’s turned to sand in his fingers and left it all over the bedroom floor.

 

\- -

 

Theres sunlight casting pictures on the floor. Renji stares at them, imagining shapes as Kensei’s hand rests on his hip. He wants a cigarette. Kensei doesn’t see like the kind to smoke. Neither does Renji, as it happens. Izuru got him hooked fifth year of the academy and Renji’s never really been able to let go.

 

Izuru. Renji wonders if Shuuhei followed his orders and told Izuru. If he hadn’t already, he will soon. Its inevitable. Like the immovable object meeting the unstoppable force. Something is bound to happen. Collisions like that are fated, they’re how sparks flash and galaxies are born. Connections make up this entire world.

 

Kensei wakes up and when he does, he rolls Renji over to he can lean in and kiss a mouth-shaped bruise on Renji’s neck, just under the left corner of his jaw. It’s surprisingly sweet. Renji wasn’t expecting it at all. And thats how maybe Renji should have been tipped off things were going in this direction or even known from the start.

 

\- -

 

And it came as a surprise to no one, least of all Renji, that Shuuhei’s fingers looked good intertwined with Izuru’s fingers, and Izuru’s palm looked good clasped against Shuuhei’s palm. They fit like halves of the same photograph, like just the right word proceeding the former in the most cherished and love-worn books.

 

Renji leans against a doorway and he’s cold all over, even the places where Kensei touched him that morning. He’s glad- the two of them really do need each other.

 

He could stop them, he knows. Or he could at least try to. Point out how much they could hurt themselves- what would one do if the other walked into battle and never walked back out? He could wrap his arm around their neck and mutter doubts that they would listen to if only because he was a trusted friend who only wanted what was best for them. Could they stand to be abandoned again? Was it worth the risk? Wouldn’t it be much safer to stay unattached, lonely and adrift as he himself was? Just the way it had always been before.

 

Because Renji wasn’t with them, but as long as they weren’t with each other it would be easier than watching them realize their feelings without him. Without them even realizing him. Being alone together was close enough. He could pry them apart and they wouldn’t even have to know the real reason why, just that 75% of Renji’s relationships to all of his friends runs on him throwing his weight around and making them accommodate his needs because Renji is so loyal and honest, Renji will always do what’s best for us.

 

Maybe if he took them by the wrists, one in each hand, and wrapped his fingers around them until he could feel every centimeter of bone stretched tight against skin and every tender vein standing out pale blue. If he asked- no, if he demanded that they stop being together. If he told them it was for their own good.

 

So Renji watches them, backs facing him and hands held tightly when they think nobody else can see. And Renji turns around and walks away.

 

Because he could. He could do so many things. His imagination is huge and all-encompassing. His will is a fist that could shatter mountains and destroy lives if he chose to. To do something he can disguise as an act of mercy of all things- it would be the easiest thing in the world to do.

 

But he won’t. He never could.

 

He finds him in the printing office, ink staining his fingers and in black, greasy streaks in the silver of his hair. And Kensei doesn’t look surprised but he doesn’t look expectant either. At least, he doesn’t until Renji shuffled up to him and sets his hands on Kensei’s waist.

 

“Renji.” Kensei says casually, openly, comfortably, without judgement. He says Renji’s first name in a way that they never have, and probably never will. The tongue’s movement and the ring of “Abarai” is too hardwired into their brains.

 

Renji thinks about the way they’ll never say his name the way that he wants them to and they’ll never look at him the way he wants them to, and their hearts will never ache for him even though some awful, evil part of Renji just wishes they would so they’d know exactly how much it hurts to love them so much. He wishes they could feel, for one moment, how he feels and how much he’s trying to be good and stay out of their way and it’s ridiculous, it’s just outright stupid to be so distraught over something as pathetic as this. It’s stupid to be so pitiful.

 

Sinking to his knees slowly, very, very slowly, Renji stares up at Kensei, the old, lost deity in a world of new spirits. A god to turn to when faith has abandoned all else. Kensei looks down at Renji with something ancient and old in his eyes as he spreads his feet for him.

 

\- -

 

He saves his evenings and mornings like this, caged between his hands and hidden inside Kensei’s home like it’s his own secret hiding place. A little cave to run to and settle in for a few hours.

 

Kensei knows. Renji knows Kensei knows. And he’s a little glad for it. It’s nice that for once, someone chooses him and knows they’re not his first choice. He’s always been the second choice. It feels good to have one of his own.

 

His second choice creeps his hand up Renji’s neck like a spider. Renji barely notices until Kensei’s thumb is on the nape of his neck, touching the most vulnerable parts of him in some affectionate gesture. Every day Kensei’s touches burn a little hotter with fondness, he wraps his arms around Renji a little more closely. Renji wants to warn him he’s making a mistake- don’t get attached to him, because he’s got nothing to offer. Renji only has room in his heart to accommodate so many people, Kensei will have to take a number and wait in line. But the whole of him is reserved for just two people.

 

But Renji is selfish, and he’s mean, and he’s so hungry for love that he doesn’t mind bleeding this man dry of it. He should mind, he knows. He’s so guilty that he doesn’t mind.

 

Sometimes he pretends- if he closes his eyes he can almost imagine he’s kissing one of them, and then maybe he’ll like it more and Kensei will like that he likes it and he won’t feel bad that he ends every night under Kensei’s covers with his back to him.

 

With Kensei’s chest against his spine, Renji counts the evenings and the mornings he’s saved. And he feels Kensei’s hand slide up his hip and Kensei says, in a voice that’s almost insistent, a voice of people who don’t know people but care anyways. “This isn’t good for you. One day you’ll need to let go. You can’t spend the next hundreds of thousands of years pining. Who knows what that will do to you, kid.”

 

“Nobody’s ever thought about it before. ‘S not worth worrying about at this point. Who knows, really. Our line of work, I might not even live long enough to find out.” Renji says, resting his head on his elbow. and locking half his face in it. “You of all people must know. Things change.”

 

Renji closes his eyes and shuts himself into a hazy half-sleep, thoughts mulling back and forth in echoes in his mind. He lives daydreams of Izuru’s voice ringing in his ears, sounding like church bells and the wind skimming off surface of rivers. He imagines that Kensei’s fingers tangled in his hair are Shuuhei’s fingers, same callouses from swords and pens, same smell of metal and fresh parchment. They aren’t his memories to keep, his parts of them to hold close in his arms, but what they won’t know will only hurt everybody Renji touches. Every hazard in his warpath, every obstacle in his range of demolition.

 

Hundreds of thousands of years, huh? That’s how long it’s gonna hurt?

 

That’s a relief. Renji was more than prepared to wait forever.


End file.
